Bartamaha (Nairobi)- Alexandre Bilodeau won Canada’s first gold medal on home soil, lifting the host nation’s spirits on the third day of the Winter Olympics that have been marred by rain, race cancellations and the death of an athlete.
“The party is just starting for Canada,” said Bilodeau, 22, who ended the country’s home medal drought with a first- place finish in the moguls event last night at Cypress resort near Vancouver. “It’s too good to be true.”
Hundreds of people whooped and cheered near the Olympic flame along the Vancouver waterfront as word spread of Bilodeau’s victory last night. Crowds spilled onto Robson Street in downtown Vancouver, singing the national anthem and waving the nation’s red and white flag.
“We’ve always been winners” in the Olympics, said Ken Ng, 50, of Richmond, British Columbia as he joined the celebrations near the flame. “Now we’re winners at home. That makes all the difference.”
Bilodeau said this won’t be the last gold medal for Canadians in the 21stWinter Olympics, with 14 more days of competition. Canada failed to win a gold medal at the Winter Games in Calgary in 1988 and the Montreal Summer Games in 1976, making it the only host nation to never win gold. Bilodeau ended that on the second day of medal competition.
“There are many more golds to come,” Bilodeau said. “This team is strong.”
Bilodeau’s moguls win last night gives the host nation reason to celebrate during an Olympics in which as much has gone wrong as right.
Luger Death
Even before the Games began, Canada’s Olympic organizers were forced to deal with the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, a luger from Georgia who crashed during a training run in Whistler, British Columbia.
The crash, just seven hours before the opening ceremony, cast a shadow over the Games for a country that had been working seven years to showcase its third-biggest city to the world.
“This has been just about the most challenging day we could ever imagine,” Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee Chief Executive Officer John Furlongsaid Feb. 12. “Never in a thousand years would we have dreamed with having to deal with the things we’ve had.”
The weather also failed to cooperate, with record-high temperatures in January and steady rain and fog on the opening weekend forcing cancellations of skiing events and training runs. Organizers were forced to close the standing-room section at Cypress for the snowboard cross events today and tomorrow because of heavy rains. The closing affects about 4,000 spectators at each event. They will be given refunds.
Opening Ceremony
Even the opening ceremony had a glitch, as the fourth pillar supporting one of the Olympic torches failed to spring up from the floor of the B.C. Place stadium, leaving one of the torch bearers with nothing to light.
Bilodeau’s victory may help the host nation change course, and end questions about whether Canada will ever win a gold at home after gold-medal favorites such as freestyle skier Jennifer Heil and speedskater Charles Hamelin failed to win on the first day of competition.
“It takes a bit of the monkey off the back of the other athletes,” said Dave Cobb, co-CEO of the Vancouver Olympics committee.
The win pushes Canada to a third-place tie in the medals standings, with a gold, a silver and a bronze. The U.S. leads with six medals.
Canada spent a record C$116 million ($109 million) to prepare its skiers, skaters, sliders and the rest of its winter athletes for Vancouver.
Better Results
“They’ve been getting some great results at many of the World Cup ski events in recent years so I think some of the money they are putting into the sport is paying off,” said Kris Hutton, 40, a software product manager from West Vancouver who was watching medal ceremonies in Whistler with his wife and four children.
The investment, and the so-called home-field advantage, prompted Daniel Johnson, a Colorado College professor with a 94 percent accuracy rate for predicting Olympic medals, to forecast Canada will win the most medals in Vancouver. He says Canada will win 27 medals, one more than the U.S. and Germany.
Own the Podium
Canada set up the “Own the Podium” program in 2004 to ensure its winter athletes fared better in Vancouver. The program paid dividends at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, when Canada placed third with 24 medals, a national record.
“We have a single goal, to be No. 1,” said Roger Jackson, the CEO of Own the Podium, which is funded by the federal government and the organizing committee of the Vancouver Winter Games.
“This is inspiring,” said Canadian luger Sam Edney, commenting on Bilodeau’s gold. “It’s going to light a fire under Canadians.”
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Bloomberg

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